In recent years, to the end of improving the comfort quality of the interior of automobiles, measures have been taken to improve the quality of the material for automotive door trims and to mount cloth, carpet and other ornamental materials on appropriate parts of the door trims.
The conventional method of mounting such an ornamental member on a door trim consisted of molding the ornamental member into a desired shape, for instance, by a vacuum molding, trimming the peripheral part into a desired shape, and mounting the ornamental member on the door trim with a bonding die set.
At such a time, the peripheral edge of the ornamental member is fitted into a peripheral groove formed in the door trim for the purpose of improving the appearance of the peripheral edge of the ornamental member.
The ornamental member typically consists of an ornamental sheet made of such material as cloth or carpet which is backed by a backing member made of such material as polyvinylchloride in order to maintain the curved shape thereof.
Therefore, it is known that a substantial increase in cost is incurred by the conventional method of mounting an ornamental member which involves a large number of steps such as the step of molding the ornamental member, the trimming step, the step of positioning the ornamental member, the step of integrally joining the door trim main body and the ornamental member, and the step of processing the peripheral edge of the ornamental member.
Further, in order to impart the capability to retain its shape to the ornamental member, a backing material is required, and this not only causes an increase in the material cost but also creates the need to position the pre-formed ornamental member exactly in the bonding die set. In particular, when the ornamental part of the ornamental member is provided with a complicated three-dimensional shape, positioning the ornamental member in the bonding die set is extremely cumbersome, and this causes a significant reduction in the production efficiency.
When there is any positional error in positioning the ornamental member in the bonding die set, it becomes impossible to accurately push the peripheral edge of the ornamental member into a peripheral groove of the door trim main body, and it causes the known problem of impairing the external appearance of the door trim because a part of the peripheral edge of the ornamental member is left exposed.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a method for fabricating automotive door trims which can eliminate the need for the preliminary forming step for the ornamental member that is to be mounted on the door trim main body so as to simplify the fabrication process.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for fabricating automotive door trims which allows the ornamental member to closely follow the profile of the door trim main body even when the part where the ornamental member is to be mounted is given with a complicated three-dimensional shape, and eliminate the need for accurate positioning the ornamental member so that the mounting of the ornamental member can be achieved in a short time.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method for fabricating automotive door trims which can maintain the satisfactory appearance of the door trim by allowing the peripheral edge of the ornamental member to be accurately forced into the peripheral groove of the door trim member.